The technique of printing with blocks of wood has a long history in Japan. From the 8th through 16th centuries, it was primarily used for the mass production of Buddhist texts and icons. By the mid-17th century, books and single-sheet prints, often featuring scenes of city life based on contemporary literature, were produced to satisfy the demand of a growing and wealthy urban class for arts that reflected their interests and activities. Teahouses, brothels, and puppet and Kabuki theaters--clustered together on the outskirts of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka--constituted their primary amusements, and these townsmen celebrated a life style free from the constraints of daily life as well as those inherent in the rigid government-dictated social structure of the times. These establishments and the actors, courtesans, and writers who inhabited them set the trends for metropolitan fashions in literature, art, and clothing. The entertainment districts, their art and their fashions, constituted the
ukiyo or 'floating world,' and thus woodblock prints (and paintings) depicting the localities, activities, and denizens of this world are known as
ukiyo-e, or 'pictures of the floating world.'
Innovative compositions, an interest in psychological states, anda fascinating interplay of social commentary, satire, and caricature are characteristic features of these images, evident in the large number of prints produced in the 'big head picture' or okubi-e format during this period. Concentrating on the faces and upper bodies of their subjects, 'big head' prints present well-known actors and courtesans (as well as anonymous subjects) in an arresting and intimate fashion. The immediacy of okubi-e prints is intensified in representations of Kabuki actors by the viewer's awareness that the subject of the print is a person whose identity is known playing the role of another (actual or fictional) person. The humor and satire that permeates prints designed by the enigmatic master Toshusai Sharaku often derives from an understanding of this tension.
For example, in this print of the actors Nakajima Wadaemon and Nakamura Konozo, shown in their roles as two minor characters from a production of A Medley of Tales of Revenge (Katachi-uchi Noriyai-banashi), Sharaku's witty comparisons of their facial expressions, Nakamura's bulk, and Nakajima's emaciation help distinguish the men within the roles, reminding viewers that actors are real people and not ideal creatures.
A Medley was presented at the Kiriza in Edo during the 1794-95 season and was recorded by Sharaku in a series of prints. A combination of two popular Kabuki dramas, it tells the story of two sisters' revenge for the death of their father. Sharaku made several printsdepicting various actors in scenes from either the shiraishi-banashi section of the play or from hana shobu omi no kanzashi, a dance performed at the same time.
The small seal on this print reads kiwame, 'inspection concluded.'It was the first censor's seal to be used on Japanese woodblock prints. The imposition of official censorship and the insistence that the design of every print be government-approved was one of the many ways in which the Tokugawa regime sought to controlthe life styles and the increasing economic and political clout of the urban class.Nothing is certain about the life of Sharaku. All that is reliably known about him is that from May 1794 to the beginning of 1795, he designed and produced about 150 woodblock prints featuring various actors in scenes from contemporary Kabuki performances, creating a visual record of specific moments in the lives of well-known actors, and some of the most spectacular and famous woodblock prints in Japanese art.
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The technique of printing with blocks of wood has a long history in Japan. From the 8th through 16th centuries, it was primarily used for the mass production of Buddhist texts and icons. By the mid-17th century, books and single-sheet prints, often featuring scenes of city life based on contemporary literature, were produced to satisfy the demand of a growing and wealthy urban class for arts that reflected their interests and activities. Teahouses, brothels, and puppet and Kabuki theaters--clustered together on the outskirts of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka--constituted their primary amusements, and these townsmen celebrated a life style free from the constraints of daily life as well as those inherent in the rigid government-dictated social structure of the times. These establishments and the actors, courtesans, and writers who inhabited them set the trends for metropolitan fashions in literature, art, and clothing. The entertainment districts, their art and their fashions, constituted the <I>ukiyo</I> or 'floating world,' and thus woodblock prints (and paintings) depicting the localities, activities, and denizens of this world are known as <I>ukiyo-e</I>, or 'pictures of the floating world.'<P>Innovative compositions, an interest in psychological states, anda fascinating interplay of social commentary, satire, and caricature are characteristic features of these images, evident in the large number of prints produced in the 'big head picture' or <I>okubi-e</I> format during this period. Concentrating on the faces and upper bodies of their subjects, 'big head' prints present well-known actors and courtesans (as well as anonymous subjects) in an arresting and intimate fashion. The immediacy of <I>okubi-e</I> prints is intensified in representations of Kabuki actors by the viewer's awareness that the subject of the print is a person whose identity is known playing the role of another (actual or fictional) person. The humor and satire that permeates prints designed by the enigmatic master Toshusai Sharaku often derives from an understanding of this tension.</P><P>For example, in this print of the actors Nakajima Wadaemon and Nakamura Konozo, shown in their roles as two minor characters from a production of <I>A Medley of Tales of Revenge</I> (<I>Katachi-uchi Noriyai-banashi</I>), Sharaku's witty comparisons of their facial expressions, Nakamura's bulk, and Nakajima's emaciation help distinguish the men within the roles, reminding viewers that actors are real people and not ideal creatures.</P><P><I>A Medley</I> was presented at the Kiriza in Edo during the 1794-95 season and was recorded by Sharaku in a series of prints. A combination of two popular Kabuki dramas, it tells the story of two sisters' revenge for the death of their father. Sharaku made several printsdepicting various actors in scenes from either the <I>shiraishi-banashi</I> section of the play or from <I>hana shobu omi no kanzashi</I>, a dance performed at the same time.</P><P>The small seal on this print reads <I>kiwame</I>, 'inspection concluded.'It was the first censor's seal to be used on Japanese woodblock prints. The imposition of official censorship and the insistence that the design of every print be government-approved was one of the many ways in which the Tokugawa regime sought to controlthe life styles and the increasing economic and political clout of the urban class.</P?<P>Nothing is certain about the life of Sharaku. All that is reliably known about him is that from May 1794 to the beginning of 1795, he designed and produced about 150 woodblock prints featuring various actors in scenes from contemporary Kabuki performances, creating a visual record of specific moments in the lives of well-known actors, and some of the most spectacular and famous woodblock prints in Japanese art.</P>
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